The theory was to unite the remembrance of Christian facts and Christian names with particular seasons in the lives of men, to interlink religion with social intercourse, to recognize recreation as a human necessity, to hallow it with Christian influences, and to allow joy, on account of the events recorded in the Gospel, to express itself in innocent festivities. But nobody can fail to see that if this was the theory, the practice did not correspond with it, for the history of the amusements common in England at these festivals after the Restoration, as before, abounds in proofs of revelry and riot, most unseemly in the estimation of sober Christians. A distinction ought to be made between the use of festivities at Christmas, Easter, and other seasons, and their abuse; between what is harmful and what is innocent; and also it must be allowed that, whilst Churchmen, in the days of which we speak, mingled recreation with religion, some of them also mingled the spirit of religion with recreation, and condemned all vicious indulgence; but the fact still remains, that amongst the lower classes, and the upper as well, in cities and towns, and in rural districts, a large amount of social demoralization existed under the cover of Christian symbols, and in union with professedly Christian observances. This fact should not be overlooked in an Ecclesiastical History of England. [Sidenote: RECREATIONS.] Different ideas respecting amusements are marked badges of religious denominations, and one of the dangers of all Puritanism is a tendency to separate between recreation and religion, and to regard them as if antagonistic, from mistaken views of the condition and necessities of human nature; views which ignore one side of the mind of man, and narrow the range of social sympathies. Some good men of the Puritan class did, in consequence, look sourly on several very innocent sorts of pleasure; but the morbid, ungenial restriction of feeling, ascribed to the Puritans in general, has been greatly exaggerated, and to some extent, so far as it really existed, an excuse may be found for it in the persecuting treatment which they, as a body, received from those who were foremost in promoting the revival of old English customs. The distinctive amusements of the Church festivals the Puritan disliked, condemned, and opposed. Indeed, many disliked, condemned, and opposed the festivals themselves, from a strong conviction that they were superstitious in their origin, their character, and their tendency. They devoutly believed in the events which those festivals commemorated, and thought that they should be remembered, not at particular seasons, but all the year round. Their idea of the festivals was not such as to redeem the recreations which had clustered round them; and the recreations themselves were, to their religious and moral tastes, exceedingly offensive.